FOX on Kurt

Funny, when I take the time to actually tell people I won’t be posting, I end up posting more than usual. This time it’s because I ran across JD Rhodes’s mention of FOX’s excuse for a Vonnegut obituary.

As usual, I’m late to this, but it had an effect on me. Like the man or not, enjoy his books or not, this is a striking example of some pretty lousy journalism. I tried to give it a chance, and at first it seemed to just be realistic (Vonnegut usually took the time to admit his own failures). But the piece’s steady bleak movement and use of selective quotes (emphasizing Vonnegut’s political rants, which most fans of his fiction probably don’t care about) and final line strike me as completely indefensible.